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Homestuck
As described on the , Homestuck is "a tale about a boy and his friends and a game they play together." Homestuck is the fourth and largest story of MS Paint Adventures, with 8,123 pages (out of 10,030 MSPA pages). It started on the 13th of April 2009 (4/13/09), 413 becoming a recurring number in-universe. The story contains foul language, violence, gore, and other adult themes. The comic ended on April 13, 2016, 7 years after the stable release was first published. The Credits were posted on October 25 of the same year. Various numerical data about Homestuck are maintained here. Homestuck s basic premise was inspired by games like The Sims, Spore, and EarthBound. Unlike previous Adventures, Homestuck is no longer primarily driven by reader submitted commands, Andrew having taken full control of the story during Act 4. However, he admits to still drawing inspiration from the speculation and fanart of his fanbase. The Homestuck Beta, that was started on April 10, three days prior to the now official release, was Andrew's original attempt to start the comic, which he planned to make entirely in Flash, and drop the MS Paint-style art. However, when the Homestuck Stable Release came, it was revealed that it would continue its art style and use of animated GIFs instead. It was revealed a few days later in Andrew's blog that this was not planned, but rather, it was because doing a whole series with Flash was too difficult and time consuming for him. Although most of the adventure is still created with animated gifs, there are still occasional Flash updates which take the form of movies or even interactive minigames, and include music. The game of Homestuck is shown to have . The first disc lasts until the . The second disc, resembling , was supposed to last until the end of the adventure, though it was later to only last through Act 6 Intermission 5. The second disc by Terezi when she attempts to play it on a record player, causing the game to at an inopportune time. It had to be taken to a scratch doctor in order to be repaired. Around April 16, 2013, Andrew added these discs to the , as well as new sections known as "Parts". These span roughly equal portions of Homestuck, unlike the wildly varying page lengths of its Acts. As of March 2017, there are 4 Parts of Homestuck. Acts Part 1 ACT 1 - THE NOTE DESOLATION PLAYS (Started 04/13/09, ended 06/07/09) ACT 2 - RAISE OF THE CONDUCTOR'S BATON (Started 06/10/09, ended 10/11/09) ACT 3 - INSANE CORKSCREW HAYMAKERS (Started 10/13/09, ended 01/15/10) INTERMISSION - DON'T BLEED ON THE SUITS. (Started 01/16/10, ended 02/10/10) ACT 4 - FLIGHT OF THE PARADOX CLONES (Started 02/10/10, ended 05/26/10 PSYCHE 06/12/10) ( ) Part 2 ACT 5 (Started 06/12/10, ended 10/25/11) :ACT 1 - MOB1US DOUBL3 R34CH4ROUND (Started 06/12/10, ended 09/19/10) :ACT 2 - HE IS ALREADY HERE. (Started 09/19/10, ended 10/25/11) ( ) INTERMISSION 2 - THE MAN IN THE CAIRO OVERCOAT. (Started 10/31/11, ended 11/02/11) Part 3 ACT 6 (Started 11/11/11, ended 04/06/16) :ACT 1 - THROUGH BROKEN GLASS (Started 11/11/11, ended 12/11/11) :INTERMISSION 1 - CORPSE PARTY (Started 12/11/11, ended 01/01/12) :ACT 2 - YOUR SHIT IS WRECKED. (Started 01/02/12, ended 03/09/12) :INTERMISSION 2 - PENIS OUIJA (Started 03/10/12, ended 04/13/12) ( - ) :ACT 3 - NOBLES (Started 04/14/12, ended 07/29/12) :INTERMISSION 3 - BALLET OF THE DANCESTORS (Started 08/31/12, ended 11/03/12) :ACT 4 - VOID (Started 11/12/12, ended 11/14/12) :INTERMISSION 4 - DEAD (Started 11/14/12, ended 11/27/12) :ACT 5 - OF GODS AND TRICKSTERS (Started 11/28/12, ended 02/16/13) ::ACT 1 (Started 11/28/12, ended 01/11/13) ::ACT 2 (Started 01/11/13, ended 01/26/13) ::ACT 1 X2 (Started 01/26/13, ended 02/16/13) :INTERMISSION 5 - I'M PUTTING YOU ON SPEAKER CRAB. (Started 02/17/13, ended 04/14/13) ( - ) ::Intermission 1 (02/19/13) ::Intermission 2 (02/21/13) ::Intermission 3 (03/21/13) ::Intermission 4 (04/01/13) ::Intermission 5 (04/06/13) ::Intermission 6 (04/11/13) Part 4 :ACT 6 (Started 06/12/13, ended 04/06/16) ::ACT 1 - HOMOSUCK (Started 06/12/13, ended 06/13/13) ::INTERMISSION 1 - STARDUST (Started 06/14/13, ended 08/27/13) ::ACT 2 - LOSHIT (Started 08/29/13, ended 09/02/13) ::INTERMISSION 2 - THERES PROBLEMS (Started 09/02/13, ended 10/16/13) ::( - no panel) ::ACT 3 - GOD'S GIFT TO THE YAOIS (Started , ended 10/25/14) ::INTERMISSION 3 - GAME OVER (Started 10/25/14, ended 10/26/14) ::ACT 4 - DARK NIGHT OF THE FEELINGS ( ) ::INTERMISSION 4 - F1X TH1S (Started 11/03/14, ended 01/19/15) ::ACT 5 - MASTERPIECE (Started 04/13/15, ended 04/22/15) ( - no panel) ::INTERMISSION 5 - SHE'S 8ACK (Started 04/22/15, ended 04/02/16) ::ACT 6 - COLLIDE. (Started 04/06/16, ended 04/12/16) ACT 7 - THE RAPTURE (Started 04/13/16, ended 10/25/16) ( - no panel) CREDITS - POST CANON (10/25/16) Plot Part 1 (Acts 1 through 4) The End of the World On his 13th birthday, John Egbert receives the latest computer game, a beta version of an immersive simulation game called Sburb. Working with his friend Rose Lalonde, they discover that the game allows the players to manipulate their reality. A startling revelation comes, though - an apocalyptic meteor shower is beginning to destroy the world before their very eyes. However, the game gives them tools to escape their fate. Using the game's alchemy system to create a special item, John and his house enter a new, shadowy realm full of monsters. His dead grandmother is revived as his Kernelsprite, a spirit guide each Sburb player receives to help them understand this new setting and the rules of the game. She explains that he is in the Medium in a new dimension called the Incipisphere. The Incipisphere is a world of "warring royalty in a timeless expanse," where the forces of Prospit and Derse struggle for dominion over the realm of Skaia in the chess-patterned Battlefield at its center. John and his friends must fight against the monsters of the dark kingdom, controlled by the Denizens, and free the Consorts of the four planets circling Skaia. They must master the inventory system called the Sylladex, and understand the alchemy system the game provides. John cannot help Rose get into the game, as he has lost his game copy. Their friends Dave Strider and Jade Harley, must assist them by forming a player chain. They struggle with their Guardians to get a hold of game copies. One by one, they work together to flee the apocalypse and enter their personal planets, where they have personal quests to fulfill, monsters to fight, and Consorts to interact with. Rose and Dave get their own sprites, as Dave resurrects Rose's dead cat and Jade resurrects a dead crow in Dave's apartment. John, Rose, Dave, and Jade slowly learn of their roles as the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Knight of Time, and the Witch of Space respectively. They start to awaken their dream selves on Prospit and Derse - Jade is the only one awake at the start of the game, giving her some advance knowledge. A Game of Paradoxes The heroes must pass the Seven Gates, reach Skaia, and stop the Black King and Black Queen from destroying Skaia in an event called the Reckoning. However, it’s said that Skaia would buy the kids time by creating defense portals that would redirect the meteors to another place in paradox space – Earth. Some of these meteors are to "seed" laboratories like the Skyship Base on Earth, and carry Exiles – former members of the two kingdoms – to the year 2422, long after the apocalypse, for them to repopulate the Earth. Exiles talk to the players as they enter their lands in the Medium, such as the Wayward Vagabond, who acts as a voice in John's head. In the game session, Carapacian agents, some of whom will later be exiled, carry out their kingdom's duties. Others spawn structures like the Frog Temple, an ancient place containing the code for Sburb and a Lotus Time Capsule enabling item transport between Earth and the Incipisphere. In this temple, the genetic code for Jade's omnipotent dog Becquerel, the first guardian of Earth, is created. However, another revelation happens as John eventually reaches a laboratory in the Incipisphere’s outer meteor belt called the Veil, where he uncovers a mysterious ectobiology machine. John accidentally facilitates the kids’ and their guardians' own existences. They are sent back to the past on meteors during the Reckoning as well, to set in motion the entire chain of events. Some of these meteors even become the meteors that hit the kid's houses in the first place - the heroes slowly realize that the whole game is based on a series of stable time loops and paradoxes. They also learn that they are not the only group of people playing the game. Countless other sessions of players, on other planets in other dimensions, also exist. But even as they get better at the game, a sense of dread emerges in their minds that something is wrong. They are contacted by trolls who tell them their mission will end in failure and attempt to dissuade them from continuing or goad them into making mistakes. The trolls, despite seeming nasty, unwittingly assist the kids in completing paradoxical events; one of them tricks John into dying in a doomed timeline, but Dave travels back in time with his newfound abilities and becomes his own self's sprite. However, the troll's warnings come true, as a weapon Jade tries to give to John accidentally ends up in the hands of Jack Noir, the nefarious archagent of Derse. He commits double regicide against the monarchs of Derse and grabs the Black Queen's ring, granting him the Kernelsprite prototyping. He becomes the Sovereign Slayer, wreaking destruction wherever he goes – something never intended to happen in the game. He also destroys Prospit's moon, killing Jade's dream self in the process. Learning this, the White Queen tasks a Parcel Mistress with protecting her ring, but she eventually loses it and later goes on to become exiled to the future Earth in 2422. Part 2 (Act 5) The Troll Session: Universe A While the kids continue playing their game, the author switches focus to the trolls who have been contacting the kids. The trolls are players from the planet of Alternia in another universe, who played a session of Sburb (or, as they called it, Sgrub) long ago in the past. Trolls are an interplanetary alien race with a vastly different and yet similar culture to humans. Trolls' guardians are creatures called lusii. They reproduce by contributing their genetic material to a Mother Grub and do not know their own parents, although some believe they are descended from certain ancestors. They have a complicated system of romance. They have a blood-based caste system of many different colors; depending on blood color, some trolls have longer lifespans than others and can have a range of psychic abilities, with the purple and fuchsia seadwellers at the top and 'lower' bloods treated as expendable, second-class citizens. Trolls are expected to be vicious and ruthless to survive. These twelve players are led by the cantankerous and insecure Karkat Vantas. The other players include fatalistic ghost Aradia Megido, disabled and timid Tavros Nitram, cynical hacker Sollux Captor, romance-minded Nepeta Leijon, dutiful and motherly Kanaya Maryam, mischievous blind justice-seeker Terezi Pyrope, manipulative and glory-seeking Vriska Serket, traditionally-minded roboticist Equius Zahhak, intoxicated clown Gamzee Makara, aristocratic seadweller Eridan Ampora, and cheerful heir to the throne Feferi Peixes. These twelve started out in two competitive teams, but soon realized they were part of one single session. Despite their differences - including grudges held over a revenge-fueled series of incidents that left some of them disabled - they managed to cooperate long enough to win their game. Their session was similar to the kid's; they had their own planets and their own hero roles. Their version of Jack and his fellow agents helped them dethrone the Black Queen and exile her; these agents would later be exiled themselves to the post-apocalyptic Alternia, where they would become the Midnight Crew, a gang of mobsters in rivalry with a gang called . Much of the information that allowed them to win came from a mysterious source: , the omnipotent and omniscient first guardian of Alternia. In the end, the twelve players beat the Black King and discovered the ultimate purpose of Sburb - to create new universes. The universe the Trolls created was none other than the home universe of the human kids - the universe home to Earth. However, something went wrong, and an indestructible, omnipotent demon was unleashed into their game. Before the trolls could gain access to the new universe, they were stopped by his appearance in the space-time continuum. They fled into a laboratory on a meteor in the Veil and hid there while he went on to destroy the rest of their session; it is here where, with Karkat's leadership, they began to troll the kids through Trollian - where they can access them from any point in their life before the mysterious Scratch - believing the kids responsible for their plight. The Human Session: Universe B As Jade enters the session and Becquerel prototypes her sprite with himself, it is revealed that this demon was actually a fully-prototyped Jack Noir ('Bec Noir'); due to Bec's omnipotence, Jack is now capable of teleporting around the session, murdering at random and without warning. He would later, mysteriously, get into the session of the trolls and prevented them from winning the game. Realizing that Jack is as much the kid's problem as it is the troll's, the trolls begin to shift their approach from antagonism to a begrudging cooperation. Kanaya and Rose talk to each other to learn more about each other's species. Terezi takes an interest in Dave and starts to help him through his quest, which includes an extensive amount of time travel. Vriska begins manipulating the humans, including being responsible for putting Jade to sleep throughout her life and allowing Bec to prototype himself. However, she helps John realize his abilities as a Heir of Breath, and she leads him to his Quest Bed, where he is killed in his sleep and ascends to god tier, a higher level where players have a certain degree of immortality. Jade, meanwhile, is struggling to catch up after her dream self was killed. She has a nightmare, making her cranky and unwilling to cooperate with the insufferable Karkat, who had been nasty to her in the past. This only becomes worse when she prototypes Becsprite with her own dead dream self. However, she learns that she will now be dreaming in dream bubbles, places made out of the memories of players. The bubbles serve as the afterlife for dead players and where living players go while they sleep when their dream selves are dead. Aradia, who became god tier when Jack destroyed her Derse, is now alive and serving as a steward of the afterlife. Jade becomes more willing to cooperate with Karkat, and proceeds to captchalogue a mysterious window known as the Fourth Wall stored in her grandfather's laboratory. She also learns from Kanaya that, as the space player, she must stoke the Forge on her planet and begin breeding frogs for the purpose of creating the Genesis Frog, the frog that will become the new universe the kids create. Meanwhile, Rose is working on her own plan. She has been talking to , and has learned from him about the existence of the Green Sun, a large and very cosmically important sun within the depths of paradox space which powers the first guardians. In her sleep she also communicates with the Horrorterrors in the Furthest Ring, the space between universes where time and space are highly non-linear. She believes she can de-power Jack by recovering a massive bomb called The Tumor from the middle of the Battlefield on Skaia, and delivering it to the Green Sun to blow it up. Kanaya and Dave are concerned about this, with Kanaya in particular worried about Rose's impending 'black out' in which she can no longer see her on her timeline. While John is tasked with recovering the Tumor, Rose discovers that Jack Noir has killed her mother, and with Doc Scratch's manipulation and the urgings of the Horrorterrors she goes 'grimdark'. On the meteor where the Trolls are hiding, things begin to turn sour. Several of the Trolls begin killing each other. With Gamzee having sobered up, he believes he has a religious mission to kill lower-blooded trolls, and murders Nepeta and Equius while speaking of his mirthful messiahs and a Vast Honk yet to come. Kanaya, meanwhile, is protecting the Matriorb, an egg vital to the future of the troll race, but it is destroyed by Eridan, who believes there is no more hope, and kills her and Feferi after they try to stop him from joining Jack Noir. Kanaya is resurrected as a vampire thanks to her blood, and takes revenge on Eridan. Vriska, who is revealed to have been a god tier all along, kills Tavros and then seeks to stop Jack, but she is killed by Terezi, a Seer of Mind who foresees a doomed timeline from Vriska's actions. Cascade: The Death of Two Universes By this point, assumes control of the narrative due to Disc Two of Homestuck being damaged, where he proceeds to explain many of the following events as he waits for the arrival of his master, . The plan nears fruition; John recovers the Tumor and delivers it to Derse, but finds the grimdark Rose on the Battlefield, where he discovers that his own father is dead. After a confrontation with Jack, Rose is killed and her dream self wakes up; she and Dave proceed to pilot Derse's moon into the Furthest Ring to deliver the Tumor to the Green Sun. John, meanwhile, is supposed to cause the Scratch, an important event that will reset their entire session in order to produce more favorable winning conditions. However, players do not ordinarily survive the Scratch, but Jade has learned by speaking to her land's Denizen, Echidna, that she can continue to exist if she brings the session's planets through the Fourth Wall to the scratched session. She has also completed breeding the Genesis Frog, but does not know how to carry out Echidna's request. Jade is killed by an agent of Derse, and Jack Noir, having inherited Becquerel's loyalty, takes her corpse to her Quest Bed. With Jadesprite being considered her dream self, she is revived as a god tier Witch of Space, enabling her to take the kids' four planets and the Skaian battlefield and shrink them down. John completes the Scratch, and he and Jade depart on a Prospitian battleship through the Fourth Wall before the session resets. To escape the Scratch, Jack Noir enters the Lotus Time Capsule on the Frog Temple, and goes to the future Earth, where the Exiles have gathered around the Frog Temple ruins in the desert. The exiles are preparing to destroy the laboratories such as the Skyship Base and then start a new civilization. Jack slays most of the exiles, including the former White Queen and King and the Armaments Regent. He mortally wounds Wayward Vagabond and proceeds to teleport to the Troll's session using the Skyship Base's transporter, where he then attacks the Trolls' Genesis Frog. This destroys the human's universe, but not before the Peregrine Mendicant on Earth discovers the White Queen's ring, which was in the possession of fellow exile Wayward Vagabond. After putting on the ring and gaining omnipotence similar to Jack, she follows him to the trolls' session. Meanwhile, at Scratch's direction, Spades Slick - the trolls' exiled Jack - kills Snowman, the trolls' exiled Black Queen whose life is bonded to the trolls' universe. It is then that the true purpose of the Tumor is revealed - fueled by the death of two universes, it is not meant to destroy the Green Sun, but to create it. , once again manipulating the players, never mentioned just what the bomb actually did. The sun is created, and from its flames rise the god tier Rose and Dave. After Karkat pacifies Gamzee's murderous rage, Sollux uses his psychic powers to pilot the trolls' meteor to the site of the Green Sun for a rendezvous. Meanwhile, upon the death of and the destruction of the two universes, a code activates and the evil , a time-travelling crime lord, leader of and 's master, makes his arrival at the end of the trolls' universe and begins his own work. Part 3 (Act 6 Acts 1 through 5) After the Scratch The scratch resets the Kids' universe so that the kids and their ectobiological parents are sent to Earth at different times. Jane Crocker, Jake English, Dirk Strider and Roxy Lalonde, the B2 kids, are the new players in this instance of the universe. However, while they prepare to play the game, it is apparent that the odds are stacked against them. Earth is a corporate planet owned by Betty Crocker, who is really the Condesce, the former Empress of Alternia now in the service of and the usurper of the Black Queen in the new Incipisphere. Roxy and Dirk live years in the future in a flooded planet, constantly under threat of the Imperial Drones, and the God Cat makes mischief for these new heroes. The B2 kids are contacted by two members of another alien species - the cherubs, consisting of the friendly and helpful Calliope and the violent and antagonistic Caliborn, who share the same body and are going to play their own session. Caliborn plans to kill Calliope as part of the 'game'. Meanwhile, together with the surviving trolls, the original four kids embark on two separate three-year journeys to the B2 session. PM sends the wounded WV to the kids and trolls at the Green Sun, who then begin to travel through the Furthest Ring on a meteor, getting him medical attention soon after. PM proceeds to pursue Jack Noir as he pursues the meteor through the Ring. Meanwhile, John, Jade and the remaining population of their Incipisphere - shrunken by Jade's god tier powers - have broken through the Fourth Wall and have begun to cross the Yellow Yard. As the three years progress, the meteor's crew passes through dream bubbles. Through these dream bubble visits, they encounter the pre-scratch trolls, a group of troll players who are the ancestors of the more familiar trolls. They played Sburb and were forced to reset their null session with a scratch, resulting in the post-scratch troll session that the kids had interacted with. One of the trolls, Meenah Peixes, killed all of them so that they could survive the scratch and continue to exist through dream bubbles. However, they soon discover that has been destroying dream bubbles and killing players who are already dead, shattering reality in the process. Swiftly realizing the vast threat he poses to reality itself, they begin to come up with plans to combat him. Meenah seeks out her fellow dead players to amass a ghost army, while the dead Vriska plans to use a map of the Furthest Ring and follow 's path of destruction to find a treasure that could defeat him. Aranea Serket wants to find Calliope, who is now dead, having had her body permanently been taken over by Caliborn, who is revealed to actually be as a child. The B2 kids manage to enter their Medium without pre-entry prototypings. The planets are barren wastelands and all of the Underlings are skeletal. The new session is a void session where Skaia can never advance to its final state; the B1 kids must bring their Battlefield and their Genesis Frog so it can release the Vast Croak there. After months of waiting, it comes to the day before their arrival. Meanwhile, the Alpha kids are beset by relationship problems which threaten the unity of their group. When the kids receive Calliope and Caliborn's jujus - cherubs' prized magical objects - the ensuing chaos leads to the four winding up on their Quest Crypts in the center of Prospit and Derse's moons. The Alpha Jack Noir receives Lil Cal, a cursed juju that had previously appeared all throughout the story. He becomes possessed and soon channels the powers of ('Lord Jack'), using them to destroy Prospit's moon while the Condesce destroys Derse's moon. The Alpha kids ascend to god tier, and are rescued from an ambush by Jade, who has just arrived in the session. The Condesce uses her powers to mind control Jade, who in turn mind controls Jane; the two kidnap Roxy and Jake. Dirk and 'Lord Jack' are teleported to the edge of the session. The group on the meteor, which has almost reached the alpha session, is beset by their own emotional problems, and seems unprepared for the struggle ahead. John, on the other hand, is asleep on arrival. As 's destruction of reality forms a ring around the Green Sun, a sleeping John meets the ghosts in the afterlife, who have formed a pirate crew led by Vriska. As they approach the treasure, Aranea explains cherub biology and the origin of Calliope and Caliborn, who were raised in their infancy by Gamzee on a planet that was in fact a B2 Earth displaced in space and time. She explains how Caliborn predominated over his sister and entered his own session, where he could communicate with the author, Andrew Hussie. He learned that his session was a dead session, an extraordinarily difficult type of void session that would never be able to produce a new universe, even with outside intervention, and thus possessed its own unique victory conditions. Playing this session, he amassed leprechaun followers which would later become the Felt, and continued to gain power in his journey. The pirate crew finds the treasure, which turns out to be a transparent Sburb logo. John, sticking his arm through, discovers that it is a gateway to any point in time and paradox space, and becomes 'unstuck' from the Homestuck canon. He winds up appearing in many events in the story before appearing in the Alpha session. Part 4 (Act 6 Act 6 & Act 7) Arrival in the New Session .]] In Act 6 Act 6, Caliborn hijacks the narrative and makes fun of Homestuck with his own version, 'HOMOSUCK'. However, Andrew Hussie is still able to tell the main story via the intermissions in this act. To retaliate, Caliborn puts some stardust into the cartridge hosting Homestuck, which puts glitches in the story. The meteor crew finally arrives in the session, but Jade intercepts them all (except Gamzee) and leaves them divided into pairs on different planets. With the heroes now in her possession, the Condesce forces them to help enact her secret plan: no longer willing to serve , she intends to betray him by finishing the B2 session, seizing the Ultimate Reward for herself, and recreating her empire in the new universe with Earth as its new capital, brainwashing Jane and Jade to these ends. John uses his story warping abilities to visit his friends in the session. He and the imprisoned Roxy formulate a plan to use the Ring of Life - a legendary ring John found while in a dream bubble - to bring Calliope back to life and prevent from killing her. However, he discovers the ring is missing before being warped away into Caliborn's parody. Meanwhile, the dead pre-scratch troll Aranea has taken it upon herself to take control of the situation in the way she sees fit, believing she can prevent from being born and use her Sylph of Light powers to make a new alpha timeline. Aranea mind-controls Gamzee to steal the ring and bring her back to life with it. She activates Jake's Hope powers. Jane and Jade mobilize to stop her and many other characters arrive on the scene. A large melee ensues, but in the resulting conflict many of the characters end up dying. When John arrives, he meets up with Roxy on her planet. A mortally wounded Terezi arrives and demands John use his story-warping powers to fix things, believing him to be able to alter history without dooming the timeline. Visiting his Denizen Typheus, John is offered a choice, and with his powers he removes the oil from his land, scattering it throughout the story, and removing the glitches. He transports his planet to the void and resumes warping through reality, using a phrase he and Terezi came up with - 'there's no place like home' - to return to when he and Terezi were planning. Since this test proved successful, Terezi gives John a list of instructions to alter the past that will help them prevent the doomed timeline. Using codewords linked to thoughts Terezi had throughout her timeline, John jumps to various points in Terezi's life before, during and after her SGRUB session. The result is that Terezi never killed Vriska, allowing her to live on to help the meteor crew on their three-year journey, fixing their various emotional problems and making them overall better prepared for the new session. Vriska put Jade and Jane to sleep to prevent them from being used by the Condesce, and led the assault against the Condesce on Derse. This is explained by the sleeping Jade and Jane, who have met Calliope in her hiding spot in the dream bubbles. Jade also explains that during the three year voyage, her version of John died partway through. In her sleep, she met the alternate Calliope who prevailed over Caliborn, and learned from her that because of John's choice with his Denizen, the dead John is being replaced with the alpha John from the old timeline. John picks up the ring during his mission so Aranea can't take it, and teleports back to his planet, where the Roxy from the original timeline is staying in order to stay alive. John warps the two of them and his planet back out of the void and into the session, where they finally meet up with the other players, including Vriska. Caliborn unveils his stop-motion masterpiece; depicting future events he watched via the monitors on his planet. It shows that after he defeats the denizen Yaldabaoth, he is granted a red Juju chest, which contains the transparent house-shaped treasure. It is also shown later that he comes upon his god tier immortality clock and breaks it, gaining the immortality and flashing eyes which make him . However, John arrives with the other eight kids, but Caliborn reveals the juju, sucks up the four B1 Kids (turning the juju transparent) and banishes it to the void using the Ring of Void, where the pirate crew will later find it. After this, the Alpha kids battle Caliborn, but when Dirk uses Heart powers to rip out his soul, Caliborn, Arquiusprite, and half of Gamzee become stored in the puppet Lil' Cal, whom Roxy banishes to the void. After this, Caliborn explains that it is through Cal that Caliborn enters universes, and over time he will grow to become the monstrous . It is through Cal that Caliborn will be able to later enter the universe via emerging from the corpse of , the first guardian of Alternia - who was created using Lil' Cal and an omniscient cue ball - and possess the Jack Noir of the B2 Session. The Final Battle In the new session, after John and Roxy appear to meet and greet the heroes, Vriska begins the meeting discussing the various threats facing them - the Condesce and the various Jacks - and decide on who should fight who. Kanaya must also get Jade's denizen Echidna to release the tadpole of the Genesis Frog that Jade managed to create before the Scratch; the frog that will become the new universe. After bringing Calliope back to life, Roxy, using Void powers, summons the Matriorb from nothing and presents it to Kanaya. Several new sprites are created, including Jasprosesprite^2 and Davepetasprite^2, who will assist in the final battles. Vriska goes to the Furthest Ring and, with Meenah, finds that Tavros - whom Vriska had always bullied and called useless - has gathered a ghost army thanks to the power of friendship. The ghost army proceeds to confront , where Vriska will use the treasure as a weapon. After this, the heroes in both the session and the Furthest Ring are gathered to their respective fighting venues, Jade wakes up after meeting with the alternate Calliope, and the villains enter the scene. All of the various groups collide in catastrophic fashion. These various battles end with the enemies in the session mostly defeated - Dad, Jake and Karkat conquer , Bec Noir is disarmed by PM, Spades Slick and Lord Jack are decapitated by Dave, and the Condesce is killed by Roxy. After the battle, the heroes reunite, including all eight kids, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, and Calliope. Jane's father, who was also John's father before the scratch, also arrives, sparking a touching reunion. PM and WV throw the Queen's Rings from before the Scratch into the Forge on Jade's land; the Genesis Frog flies into Skaia and completes its transformation into the new universe. The heroes, who earlier managed to rescue the desolate B2 Earth before its destruction, use time powers to bring it back to life, where the protagonists will be able to live out the rest of their lives peacefully. The alternate Calliope goes to the Green Sun and sucks it into a black hole so massive that it creates a massive rip in paradox space, making vulnerable as well. At the site of the final battle, Vriska uses the Treasure which is inundated with the B1 kids' power, but what it does is not seen. A door appears on the treasure, as well as on the platform where the heroes can enter their new universe. Homestuck ends with John approaching the door to the new universe. Epilogues and Homestuck^2 Homestuck proper ended in April 2016, but other works continue to expand and explore various parts of the world depicted in Homestuck. Hiveswap and Hiveswap Friendship Simulator are video games that explore events on Earth and Alternia prior to the events of Homestuck. The first act of Hiveswap was released on September 14, 2017. Along with the release announcement of Hiveswap, Andrew announced a partnership with Viz Media on upcoming projects, including the continuation of Homestuck books as well as an epilogue to the story. Andrew mentioned he wanted to do "something a little unusual", "existing outside the confines of the web story". After Homestuck ended, it was communicated by Hussie that the aforementioned epilogue would be released at an unspecified future date. This manifested as The Homestuck Epilogues, an interconnected set of two prose storylines that serve as a follow-up to Homestuck, and which possess varying levels of canonicity, a metatextual concept that is also crucial to the plot of the works. The epilogues released in April 2019, and were written in a collaboration between Hussie and various other What Pumpkin Studios writers. Some extracanon events that take place after the conclusion of Homestuck were also shown on the MSPA Snapchat. The story-line depicted there was never completed, and was later confirmed to be explicitly non-Canon by Friendsim and Epilogues writer V. In October 2019, a post-Canonical sequel comic to both Homestuck and the Epilogues was announced and began updating. This comic is outlined by Hussie but features a diverse writing team. Differences between the Beta and the Stable Release Besides the art, Flash, etc., Homestuck had many changes made to it when the Stable Release came out. Here's a list of some elements Beta had that the Stable Release didn't: *The story started on the tenth of April instead of the thirteenth (both in-game and in real life), and starts on a Friday. *Likewise, the Sburb Beta was released on the seventh of April instead of the tenth. *John is ten years old instead of thirteen. *John has a white buckle on his belt, and his shoes are black with white shoelaces rather than white with black shoelaces. *The hammer and nails are on the desk rather than on the floor. *''Beta'' only includes the colors green and red, while the stable release has many others. *You cannot see the other items inside the Magic Chest. *You "place" the items in your Sylladex instead of "captchalogue" them in your Sylladex. *It includes a command that the Stable Release didn't: "John: Move green icon to MAGIC CHEST and click." It is excluded because only Beta uses the click-and-drag option. *John attempts to retrieve his arms from a drawer in his bed instead of his dresser drawer, because the bed drawer is missing in the Stable Release. *The CD rack beside his computer is missing. Missing pages For unknown reasons, seven page numbers are skipped in the MSPA numbering, namely (in troll romance), (between Rose and Dave discussing the Horrorterrors), (after ), (between John fleeing from Jade on LOLAR) and , and (after the date between Jasprosesprite^2 and Davepetasprite^2). While most of these pages are blank, 6370 is actually a duplicate of 6369 where both the "Go Back" button and the forwarding command button lead back to 6370. Consequently, the actual number of Homestuck pages is seven fewer than what the would imply, discounting easter eggs and links to images such as Jadebot's dream log or certain characters' drawings. Hiatuses Homestuck has gone on hiatus several times for various reasons. *From September 6, 2011 to October 25, 2011 to work the EoA5 flash. *From October 25, 2011 to November 11, 2011 (the start of Act 6), with the Intermission 2 flash posted as an unscheduled surprise update on October 31. *A series of pauses in July and August 2012. **Pause 1 (from July 1 to July 9) to work on the Synchronize and Unite flashes. **Pause 2 (from July 9 to July 28) to attend San Diego Comicon and work on EoA6A3 (with an unscheduled surprise update on July 17 after SDCC). **Pause 3 (from July 28 to August 30) to work on the Homestuck books and then-unannounced secret projects (including the Homestuck Adventure Game Kickstarter and possibly Namco High). *The Year 4 Megapause, from April 14, 2013 to June 12, 2013, to work on the Homestuck Adventure Game and books, attend conventions and plan out Act 6 Act 6. *The Gigapause, from October 16, 2013 to October 16, 2014, to continue working on Homestuck. Andrew Hussie stated he planned to eventually post a final "Giga-update" which would completely finish the comic. However, he later stated he would go back to serial updates in October 2014, after a full year of the Gigapause. *A pause with no official name (with Minigigapause, Microterapause and Megapause 2: Back in the Megasaddle given by Hussie as suggestions, and dubbed by fans as the Masterpause) from January 20, 2015 to April 13, 2015, to draw still more pages for A6A6I5 and work on Hiveswap. *The Omegapause, from July 28, 2015 to March 28, 2016, to make "another stretch of pages, and do some heavy animation work" while continuing work on Hiveswap. Hussie said that he "would like to shoot for" the comic ending on April 13, 2016, the 7th anniversary of Homestuck, but said given his workload that it "might actually be a tight squeeze"; ultimately the comic proper did indeed finish on the 13th. *The Epipause, a pause of six months from April 14, 2016 to October 25, 2016. It lasted from the end of the comic to the post-canon (outside canon) Snapchat credits. *The Hellapause (working title), lasting 900 days from October 26, 2016 to April 13, 2019. Ending on the 10th anniversary of Homestuck with the release of the first pages of The Homestuck Epilogues, this pause is the longest to date. News posts are archived here. Category:Homestuck Category:Adventures